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by with Ajay Kurian
This is what critical care for the arts sounds like. Meaningful conversations on creative practice and the conditions shaping artistic life today. Tune in on the second Thursday of every month for SPENT with Ajay Kurian, our series on creative burnout and breakthrough, and on the fourth Thursday for The Forum, our recorded artist talks. Subscribe today at newcrits.substack.com or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also join our community for transcripts and archival access via the Substack app or watch on YouTube. newcrits.substack.com
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- 1 weeks ago1h 11m
SPENT Episode Six | Vijay Masharani
Ajay Kurian sits down with artist Vijay Masharani for a conversation that begins with a confession about hating the highway and expands into an exploration of cliché, mortality, and what it means to keep making work from inside an unresolved illness.Masharani, who showed in this year's MoMA PS1 Greater New York, talks about his approach to video and drawing — work that hits hard and fast, straight down the middle, refusing easy resolution — and traces how his practice shifted after being diagnosed with blood cancer twice, including a hospital stay where he was ordering drawing paper from Blick's website on bedrest. He and Kurian dig into cliché as a kind of sedimented truth, Drake's theory of what makes a pop hit work, and why Philip Guston's relationship to mortality and mass has become a constant reference point for him.Throughout the conversation, Masharani resists the idea that his illness is a resolved, past-tense event — describing himself instead as living in a kind of purgatory, mediated by a monthly blood test that's essentially binary — and reflects on impatience, discipline, and why, even at his lowest, he never stopped being an artist.Timestamps00:00 — “I hate the highway”02:47 — Cliché and immediacy04:53 — The deer in the green tank10:55 — Greater New York at MoMA PS113:01 — Cancer and recurrence14:25 — Art after cancer21:42 — A game of taste24:16 — Art and politics32:26 — The “stove toucher” tendency36:29 — Making exhibitions41:03 — Exhibitions as albums46:32 — Drake and the imperfect pop hit49:01 — Returning to art after cancer53:23 — Why keep making art?57:32 — Philip Guston and mortality01:00:54 — Soutine, painting, and mass01:03:01 — Living in purgatory01:05:27 — Modernism and illnessVijay Masharani: I hate driving on the highway.Ajay Kurian: Damn, I didn’t know this.Vijay Masharani: I hate driving on there. I hate being in the car when someone else is driving on the highway.Ajay Kurian: Really?Vijay Masharani: I hate the highway, dude. I think the highway is wrong. I think it’s American thanatophilia, as an urban spatial form. I hate the highway.Ajay Kurian: Vijay Masharani is an artist, writer, and educator based in the Bay Area. He makes drawings, videos, and texts that are obsessed with the letter, the glyph, the geometry of meaning. Work that hits you hard and fast and then refuses to let you go. His videos open cold. His drawings span from the highly structured to the loose and associative, and the whole practice is organized around a single conviction: if the problems of language make you uncomfortable, you can’t flee to the body. And if the body makes you uncomfortable, you can’t just retreat above the neck.He’s currently showing at MoMA PS1’s Greater New York, a survey of the New York art scene that happens once every five years, which is the most eyes he’s ever had on his work. I’ve known Vijay since he was in undergrad. My first visit with him was back in 2016 at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art. Since then, we’ve gotten closer, collaborated on projects, and even spent a summer together at Skowhegan, where I was faculty and he was a participant. Not long after, he was diagnosed with blood cancer. Then diagnosed again. He’s made three shows since.We talked about what it means to make art from purgatory — not after a near-death experience, but inside one, where the blood test every month is essentially binary and the book is not yet closed. We talked about cliché as a sedimented truth, about why Drake said there has to be something wrong with a pop hit, about what Philip Guston understood that most painters don’t. And we talked about what changed in the studio after cancer and what stayed the same, and about why, in the end, he couldn’t stop making things even when he had every reason to.This dude was literally ordering paper from Blick on his hospital bed.Here is my conversation with Vijay Masharani.Vijay Masharani: I like clichés. I like so many clichés and I like stuff that’s right down the middle. I think in art there’s a bias toward the oblique, and every now and then it can feel really good to go down the middle. To me, that’s what a cliché can do. I think if people have responded to the work, for example, — especially the video work from early on — it’s because there’s something about the standard for video art, the way it stands apart from, or at one point stood apart from, though maybe still does from the more oblique or highly mediated kind of thing. I think the work for me was, hopefully, pretty visually forward and kind of frontal, but then not immediately digestible. That combination.Ajay Kurian: So what you’re saying is the video form in early video art may come off as a little esoteric or oblique to
- 2 weeks ago58 min
The Forum 24 | Ed Solomon
Screenwriter Ed Solomon discusses The Christophers and reflects on his career and creative process. Solomon discusses mentorship, writing intuitively, working with actors, navigating criticism, and finding a way through creative blocks.Hosted by Ajay Kurian00:00 — Welcome to The Forum00:18 — Garry Shandling02:34 — Writing The Christophers04:05 — Trusting the writing process06:37 — When success gets in the way08:37 — Letting the project evolve10:08 — The four stages of competence12:24 — Letting characters surprise you15:04 — Writing for great actors17:35 — Rehearsing with Ian McKellen18:47 — The power of silence20:19 — How scenes change each other23:10 — The terror of letting go25:28 — Finding the flow state26:17 — Inspiration is bullshit28:51 — When Lori became his mirror34:17 — Give your characters a history35:48 — Cultural tension in storytelling38:08 — The pain of criticism40:16 — How to take notes43:34 — Managing creative emotions46:28 — His mother’s influence49:55 — The importance of mentorship52:41 — Audience Q&A52:59 — Getting through the second act54:17 — Getting unstuck55:00 — Working backwards56:00 — What would be the coolest thing to happen next?58:38 — Closing Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe
- 3 weeks ago51 min
Episode Title: The Forum 23 | Inside The Studio Panel
Three artists reflect on their experiences working as assistants to established artists. Ian Cheng, Darren Bader, and Jamian Juliano-Villani discuss apprenticeship, authorship, studio culture, and the lessons—both practical and personal—they carried into their own practices.00:00 — Introduction02:36 — Becoming Assistants04:10 — The Studio as Education07:37 — Learning the Craft09:13 — Building the Impossible10:54 — Authorship14:54 — Power & Studio Culture18:37 — Learning Through Failure22:50 — Good & Bad Habits30:23 — Assistants as Teachers34:30 — Knowing When to Leave40:12 — Assistants & Authorship42:03 — Learning the Business45:28 — Art & Precarity47:42 — Why Do It?00:00:00 Ajay Kurian: Next to me here is Ian Chang. He’s an artist known for his live simulations, works that unfold over time using game engines and AI. His work has been shown at the Serpentine Galleries, MoMA PS1, Gladstone Gallery, and earlier in his career, he worked with Pierre Huyghe, which I think informs, uh, some of the ways that Ian had started to think about his work. But I’m curious to see what that relationship was. Pierre is an internationally renowned artist and has worked in massive ecosystems, taking over entire museum spaces and building things from bacteria to, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff. Um, going down the line. Next is Darren Bader. Darren is an artist whose work spans objects, language, and instructions, often questioning what an artwork even is or who it belongs to. He’s exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Palais de Tokyo, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Uh, sorry, the Museum of Modern Art in Dallas and his practice consistently unsettles ideas of authorship, making him especially interesting voice here. And he worked for the artist Urs Fischer. Um, you mentioned another artist you worked.00:01:11 Darren Bader: For, Donald Bachelor, whom, um, the late Donald Bachelor whose estate I work for now, but he’s um. Well, yeah.00:01:19 Ajay Kurian: We’ll get there.00:01:19 Darren Bader: I did, yes, I did my time with two artists, um, very, very educational.00:01:25 Ajay Kurian: And last but not least, Jamie and Juliano-villani is a painter whose work moves quickly between images, cartoons, art history, and the internet, held together by a sharp, instinctive sense of composition. She’s shown with Gagosian, Jeffrey Deitch, and at the Metropolitan Opera House. And earlier in her career she worked for Dana Schutz as well as the painter Eric Parker. So, uh, that’s actually how me and Jamie met Eric. Studio and Banks’ studio were right next to each other, and we were both assisting these artists. And yeah, Damien was just like, yeah, she, she was just in a little room and we were all just working away. So everybody give it up for all these, all the artists here. All right. Who wants to go first? No. Um, what I’m curious about is, uh, in the studios that I mentioned that you all worked for, were those studios that you sought out yourself or was it just a job? Yeah.00:02:36 Ian Cheng: Um, yeah, I was in grad school at the time at Columbia, and I was, um, had a terrible time there. I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing. Um, I really just sat in my studio checking my email, getting no email and just, uh, just looking at the wall, waiting for the next crit to happen with nothing to say. And at the end of those two years of grad school, um, the one positive relationship I had was with, uh, Liam Gillick, who was like a kind of visiting professor. And I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? I’m gonna, I’m gonna apply as a UX designer to Google New York because I just need some totally no response rejection. And I thought, what else could I do? And I said, Liam, you know, can you hook me up with PR wigs, email? Like, I’d love to. I’ll be his dream printer. I literally pitched myself, I’ll be his dream. I can just like make anything. Um, and Liam was like, I’ll get back to you. And he gets back to me. He’s like, he used the words Pierre offers you his email, which was kind of interesting way to not like do the CC connection, but just to like, just take it from here, kid. Uh, email Pierre like pitched him like, you know, had a, had a quick meeting like, oh, I didn’t have no, had no credentials. Um, and simultaneously I thought, oh, fuck, like I need another job too. So I went to like Paul Chan’s website. Wow. Um, national philistine and just like emailed him like, hey, hi. I think like we have a lot in common. Like, can we meet? And so the next week, I met with both of them. And suddenly I had two artists kind of assistant jobs. Oh, wow. And yeah, it really kind of really began their shoot.00:04:07 Jamian Juliano-Villani : Really good taste too, you know?00:04:09 Ajay Kurian: Yeah. Those are great artists.00:04:10 Ian Cheng: Well, how’s it go with people that you respect? I just thought like, oh, grad school is so bad. I
- Aug 4, 20261h 48m
SPENT: Episode Five | Marc Spiegler
For nearly a decade, Marc Spiegler served as the Global Director of Art Basel, helping shape one of the world’s most influential institutions in contemporary art. Earlier this year, his New York Times opinion piece on the challenges facing commercial galleries sparked widespread conversation about the future of the art market and the pressures confronting artists, dealers, and collectors alike.In this episode, Marc reflects on his path from journalism to Art Basel, the evolution of the global art world, and the lessons he took from leading an institution at the center of it all. We discuss his recent writing, the expansion of the international market, the role of technology and AI, the economics of art fairs, and why he believes galleries need to rethink how they build relationships with collectors.Along the way, Marc shares his perspective on financialization, speculation, collecting, and what a healthier, more sustainable art ecosystem could look like.This is a conversation about leadership, markets, and how the art world can continue to evolve without losing sight of the artists at its center.Art Galleries Are Not OK, NYT Opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/opinion/art-basel-fairs-gallery-market.html?eafs_enabled=falseMarc Spiegler Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/marcspiegler/?hl=enHosted by Ajay Kurian Produced and Edited by Peter Groppe00:00 Introduction04:23 Growing up around artists and becoming a journalist08:12 The unlikely path to leading Art Basel12:20 Leadership lessons and managing a global institution14:08 Expanding Art Basel: Asia, digital strategy, and the future17:05 AI, technology, and why change is inevitable23:00 His New York Times essay and why galleries need to think differently28:14 Financialization, speculation, and the art market34:30 Collectors, gatekeeping, and the changing role of galleries39:40 Resale contracts and protecting artists from speculation44:55 Why art fairs cost so much51:35 How galleries actually benefit from participating in fairs52:15 Auctions, speculation, and the evolution of the secondary market58:55 Have collectors become today’s tastemakers?1:08:00 Museums, collectors, and building the next generation of patrons1:15:00 Why galleries are struggling today1:23:00 Advice for young galleries navigating the current market1:30:00 What a healthier art ecosystem could look like1:36:00 Closing thoughts00:00:00 Ajay Kurian: We’re living in an era of exhaustion, and artists and creators aren’t immune to this. We’re trying to figure it out, too. Welcome to spent from the new podcast. I’m your host, AJ Kurian, an artist, writer, and educator. I’ve been in the art world for nearly twenty years, shown all over the world, and taught at universities like Yale, Columbia, Parsons and Bard. The art world is a confusing and opaque place, but all of it tends to make a little more sense to me when I talk to one person at a time. Why do you think people blame you for this over financialization? 00:00:35 Marc Spiegler: I don’t know at all. I think it’s completely bogus. Like because. Because, I mean, first of all, like, like before I was running Art Basel and while I was running Art Basel, I was always against financialization. Like I’m literally was quoted in the New York Times talking about Art Basel, Miami Beach, the week of Art Basel, Miami Beach, and saying something like eighty percent of the art that’s sold next week will be worthless in twenty years. You know, and I wasn’t just talking about Art Basel, Miami Beach. I was talking about all of the twenty five fairs, but, you know, um, I was always very clear about the fact that people should buy art that they like, not buy art as an investment. You know, I mean, I had a funny thing, um, I wrote this article for the Business of Fashion column that I had last year. Um, and the title was something like we need to stop hyping art as an investment, you know, and, and, uh, Jamie Kenyon, your friend of mine wrote to me and said, I love this, this new mark unleashed. I’m like, dude, I’ve been saying this forever. You know, people are just noticing it now. But like, I was very clear about that. 00:01:39 Ajay Kurian: Mark Spiegler spent about a decade as the global
- Jul 30, 20261h 1m
The Forum 22 | Baseera Khan
Baseera Khan joins Ajay Kurian for a conversation that begins with a Garfield drawing contest and expands into an exploration of storytelling, identity, and the politics of material.Khan reflects on finding her artistic voice through tracing comics, navigating graduate school as a search for self rather than an entry into the art world, and developing works that blend performance, sculpture, painting, and sound. Together, they discuss Braid Rage, acoustic blankets, museums, language, surveillance, and the hidden histories embedded in everyday materials.Throughout the conversation, Khan shares how dreams, humor, intuition, and personal experience shape a practice that resists fixed definitions while examining capitalism, representation, and belonging.About the GuestBaseera Khan is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, labor, material culture, and systems of power through sculpture, painting, performance, installation, and sound. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum and Participant Inc., and they were the winner of The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist.https://baseerakhan.com/00:00 Intro00:20 Garfield, Nermal & learning to draw through comics05:20 Finding an artistic path through Cornell and self-discovery12:20 Storytelling, language, and the influence of Michael Asher18:50 Braid Rage, dreams, and making work without sketches26:50 Fabric, family, and the materials of memory29:50 The “I AM MUSLIMA” Nike project, identity, and capitalism34:45 Performance, acoustic blankets, and surveillance42:30 Petroleum, plastic, and giving museum objects a voice50:50 Working with museum archives and historical collections54:20 Reality television, identity, and staying grounded1:00:30 Art, ambition, and closing thoughts00:00:00 Ajay Kurian : Welcome to the forum from the new podcast. I’m your host, Ajay Kurian. The forum is a free monthly gathering in New York where artists and thinkers come together for a live conversation. Well, you’re about to hear was recorded in front of a live audience. For details on upcoming events, sign up for our newsletter at new dot studio.00:00:19 Ajay Kurian : I was really tickled by this like, fact that I learned about Baseera literally just a few days ago, and just a few minutes ago, I had this idea. Um, so we’ll see how it goes. But basically we both got into art. Art meaning like drawing of any kind image making, um, through Garfield. And I didn’t know this until a few days ago.00:00:47 Baseera Khan: So do you guys know who Garfield is?00:00:50 Ajay Kurian : Yes. Okay.00:00:52 Baseera Khan: Do you know who Nermal is? Of course you don’t. Because that was the femme cat behind Garfield.00:01:02 Ajay Kurian : It’s true. What I wanted to see if Baseera would be down to do is if we did a little Garfield drawing contest right now.00:01:12 Ajay Kurian : Do you guys.00:01:13 Baseera Khan: Like that idea?00:01:14 Ajay Kurian : Yes.00:01:15 Baseera Khan: I haven’t thought about Garfield in a very long time. And I have to also tell you the reason why. The reason why I started drawing Garfield was not because I innately was interested in like, Garfield and drawing. It was that I was interested in the stories and the storytelling. And, um, my brother would always run to the library and rent all of the books. And he was in his phase where he didn’t want to share. I mean, he’s a very generous human.00:01:49 Ajay Kurian : Is he older or younger?00:01:50 Baseera Khan: Two years older.00:01:51 Ajay Kurian : Okay. Okay. So it’s close.00:01:53 Baseera Khan: He’s a generous human. You know, I know I’m being recorded. Love you. William. But at the time, he was going through a phase where he wanted everything to himself. So I would sneak the books out of his bag and I would trace them. I would trace the drawings and make my own books. And I think through tracing the books, I started creating my own version of the cat. So just my pardon. If the cat looks like other things.00:02:24 Ajay Kurian : That’s totally fine. This is all in good fun. Um, and I also, it’s again, like, it’s just crazy to hear that that’s also how you came to it because weirdly, there’s ideas of familial surveillance. There’s ideas of like having to take a story and make it yours because it wasn’t being offered to you in the first place. There’s just like strange dynamics that feel like there’s parallels in the work itself.00:02:52 Baseera Khan: One more thing before we st
- Jul 16, 20261h 11m
SPENT Episode Four | Erin Jane Nelson
Erin Jane Nelson joins Ajay Kurian to talk about the gap between artistic success and creative fulfillment. They discuss the reality of making a living as an artist, navigating burnout, and why reaching long-awaited career milestones can leave you questioning what comes next.The conversation explores Nelson's evolving practice—from clay pinhole cameras and photography to spirituality, caregiving, and family history—as well as the emotional and financial realities that shape life in the studio. Along the way, they reflect on ambition, artistic purpose, and the kinds of relationships that sustain a creative life long after the accolades fade.Hosted by Ajay Kurian Edited by Peter Groppe00:00 – Erin Jane Nelson on the Whitney Biennial and making cameras from clay09:38 – Success, creative block, and the unexpected reality of becoming a full-time artist17:52 – Burnout, financial anxiety, and redefining an artistic practice23:30 – October 7th, Jewish identity, spirituality, and family history31:04 – Photography, caregiving, and finding balance beyond the studio40:06 – The economics of being an artist and why most careers aren't what they seem46:39 – Almost leaving art for law school—and the opportunity that changed everything51:41 – Ajay on ambition, loss, and rediscovering purpose through art Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe
- Jun 29, 202657 min
The Forum 21 | Lucas Blalock
Lucas Blalock’s photographs often look like they’re interrupting themselves.Objects bend out of place. Edits remain visible. Corrections become part of the image instead of disappearing behind it. Rather than using photography to create the illusion of clarity, Lucas uses it to expose the decisions, accidents, and contradictions that make images possible in the first place.In this NewCrits conversation, Lucas sits down with Ajay Kurian for a discussion about photography, discomfort, and what happens when the process becomes part of the final work.The conversation begins with a story Lucas has returned to in recent years: a childhood accident that resulted in reconstructive surgery using his own toe to replace his thumb—a collision of advanced medicine and old-world improvisation that he jokingly describes as “the first bad Photoshop.”Lucas reflects on discovering art through CD covers before museums, studying at Bard, and coming of age as digital tools began changing the medium itself. Instead of treating manipulation as something to conceal, he became interested in making it visible.Again and again, he returns to the same idea: images become more interesting when they stop trying to appear effortless. 00:00 — Intro03:10 — The Disney Accident and “The First Bad Photoshop”09:45 — Origin Stories and Discovering Photography15:30 — Album Covers, Culture, and Looking Before Art20:10 — Studying with Stephen Shore26:00 — Photoshop as a New Problem for Photography31:20 — Signature, Style, and Staying Strange36:15 — Making the Worst Possible Image41:00 — Working for Vik Muniz46:10 — Labor, Accident, and Unfinishedness50:20 — Pictures That Resist Digestion54:15 — Photography, Bodies, and Sensation58:40 — AI, Anxiety, and the Future of Images1:03:00 — Outro Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe
- Jun 18, 202656 min
SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney Mallet
SPENT: Episode Three | Whitney MalletWhitney Mallet has spent years moving through magazines, galleries, performances, readings, and the shifting ecosystems that surround contemporary culture - not as an observer standing outside of it, but as someone committed to paying attention.In this conversation, Whitney sits down with Ajay Kurian to talk about criticism, instinct, and what it means to build a practice around curiosity. They discuss magazines as art projects, the lag between cultural change and cultural criticism, and why making connections between unlikely people, scenes, and ideas can create something more exciting than simply reinforcing what already exists.Whitney reflects on developing taste, not as something fixed or innate, but as something shaped through obsession, attention, and years of showing up. They talk about influence, authority, and the slow process of learning to trust your own perspective.Throughout the conversation, Whitney returns to a tension that runs through both criticism and creative work: the pull between analysis and instinct, busyness and reflection, skepticism and hope.What emerges isn’t a defense of optimism so much as a practice of remaining open. Believing that culture can still surprise you, that intensity is worth pursuing, and that staying curious might be one way of resisting disappointment.Hosted by Ajay KurianEdited by Peter GroppeProduced by NewCrits The Whitney Review of New Writing: https://www.whitneyreview.org/00:00 — Intro04:50 — Running a Magazine by Instinct09:20 — Taste, Influence, and Learning What You Like15:10 — Building Unexpected Encounters20:30 — Trusting Your Own Authority27:15 — Information, Obsession, and Developing Taste33:40 — Work as Practice38:20 — Edging Burnout43:45 — Busyness, Avoidance, and Personal Writing49:30 — Disappointment, Intensity, and Staying Optimistic55:15 — Criticism, Attention, and Cultural Delay1:01:20 — The Internet, Institutions, and the Changing Role of Reviews1:07:15 — Writing Without Permission1:11:40 — Earnestness, Cynicism, and Seeing Through Things1:16:20 — Breakthrough or Burnout1:18:00 — Outro Get full access to NewCrits Substack at newcrits.substack.com/subscribe
About The NewCrits Podcast
This is what critical care for the arts sounds like. Meaningful conversations on creative practice and the conditions shaping artistic life today. Tune in on the second Thursday of every month for SPENT with Ajay Kurian, our series on creative burnout and breakthrough, and on the fourth Thursday for The Forum, our recorded artist talks. Subscribe today at newcrits.substack.com or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also join our community for transcripts and archival access via the Substack app or watch on YouTube. newcrits.substack.com
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